Nigeria’s terracota head, which was intercepted at the Schiphol airport, Amsterdam in 2019 and calculated to be at least 600 years old, has been returned by Netherlands.

The repatriation of the Ife head "marked a milestone in Nigeria’s efforts at pursuing the return of the country’s antiquities”, according to Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's Minister of Culture.

It is only after it must have been taken for cleaning and treatment that the artefact will be eventually displayed to the public.

The statement from Nigeria's ministry of culture shows that this artefact from the ancient Ife city in south-western Nigeria was smuggled through Ghana with the use a forged document to Netherlands.

“The Nigerian government won a case in Netherlands against the suspected smuggler and was allowed to regain possession of the artefact” BBC reported.

Present at the event were: the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, and the Director General of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, to Nigeria, Mr. Harry van Dijk.

Also present at the handover ceremony which took place yesterday Thursday was the Netherlands ambassador to Nigeria.